Close-call video: House collapses at Niagara Falls, NY fire

Watch the video above at the 1:00 mark as the house on the left suddenly collapses. The video was shot by nixstreetnews during a fire Friday afternoon in Niagara Falls, New York. There were no injuries. Video below by Samar Hamilton shows siding on a house across the street also apparently ignited. Neighbors reported hearing an explosion as the fire broke out.

The fire started in a home on Seventh Street sometime after 2:00 p.m. Niagara Falls Fire Department Chief Thomas Colangelo says the flames quickly spread to the houses on either side, and caused exposure damage to a fourth house.

“When [firefighters] arrived on the scene, they found that three structures were involved,” Chief Colangelo said. “We dispatched the rest of the city there. It was a very labor-intensive fire.”

Off-duty and volunteer firefighters were called in on stand-by. The smoke and flames became so intense that firefighters eventually had to retreat from the burning buildings.

“Initially, we had a report that there was somebody in the fire, the initial structure [that caught] fire, and we did send crews in to search. But then the report, what we heard, was false. So we pulled them out. We were still fighting some interior until it got too bad to fight interior, and we pulled out. At this time, it’s surround and drown,” the chief said.